Archive for February, 2010

U.S. Representative Mike Ross met with representatives of Drew County’s “Twenty for the Future” group in his Washington, D.C., office Wednesday, during their visit to the nation’s capital to meet with federal legislators.

Ross, as well as our other elected Washington delegation members, met with the group to discuss Monticello and Drew County’s economic challenges and needs and how best to facilitate economic growth in the region.

Items on the agenda to be covered included:
University of Arkansas at Monticello, for funding of projects for the Arkansas Forest Resources Center, the School of Nursing, and to replace the university’s current phone system.
Drew Memorial Hospital intended to request funding for an electronic medical records system, a nurse call system, a digital mammogram machine, a 64-slice tomography scanner, and a telemetry system for the E.R.
The City of Monticello planned to point out the benefits of a potential Monticello community center.
Other topics to be discussed were: I-530, the Southeast Arkansas Regional Library to build a new library the local Intermodal Facility, and nearby Yellow Bend Port.

Meeting were held Wednesday, and the group is returning to Monticello, today.

Between 9:30-10 p.m., Tuesday evening, as many North and South Gabbert Street residents were getting ready for quiet night’s rest, police lights and sirens caught everyone’s attention, not once, but twice, as a police chase that began in McGehee, after a reported domestic disturbance, headed toward Lincoln County, and then turned south, traveling down HWY 83, North Gabbert Street, and South Gabbert Street, before the driver hit a dead end and reversed, traveling back north on South Gabbert and North Gabbert, then east on Oakland, north on Cooper, and finally gave up at the end of East Calhoun Street

The pursuit, which started with McGehee police, grew to include Arkansas State Police Troop E and Troop F patrol units, as well as Drew County deputies and Monticello police officers.

At the dead end of Calhoun Street, the suspect stopped the car, and officers quickly took the driver and female passenger out of the vehicle, and placed them under arrest. (more…)